Rude Awakening

It's that time of year again. The alarm goes off and I rush to silence it. It's pitch dark outside as I fumble around in the darkened house. I dress mostly by instinct, putting on the first jersey and shorts that come to hand, but I hunt around in the sock drawer for those cushy DeFeet socks, so my toes won't be hurting at the end of the ride. I grab the keys and slip the cellphone into a ziplock bag - the same one I've been using for two weeks - and stuff them in my jersey pocket as I head down to the basement munching on a cookie. I am in zombie mode. I'm running a little late. The bike has one full water bottle and a reasonable amount of tire pressure, and I'm still half-asleep as I put on my shoes, helmet, gloves and clear glasses and slip quietly out the door. It's cool this morning - low 70's. What a treat. Saturn is still bright in the sky as I flip on the flashing headlight and taillight and make for the levee. Like an old work horse, I know this route by heart and weave through the quiet back streets, bypassing the garbage truck on one street and sticking to the smooth ones as much as I can; riding past the old streetcar barn where I have to cross about ten sets of curved tracks because there's an oncoming car.

It's still dark when I get there. There are only four of us. This time of year, as the sun starts rising later and later, people start showing up later and later too. But by the time we reach the playground a couple of miles down the road, the group has swollen to 20 or so and, with all the flashing lights, we look like a big rolling swarm of fireflies. The pace ramps up quickly and as I finally start to wake up I find myself in a small group of 4 or 5, with the pack about 15 seconds back. We're riding a nice paceline, though, and although we're not exactly hammering, we're mostly up around 25 mph or so and it's a long time before the pack finally catches us and I flip off the lights. Of course they've been chasing at about 27 mph in order to close the gap, so the rest of the ride out is pretty fast. About half the riders are sitting on the back staying out of the rotation. We coast into the turn-around and pedal easy for a couple of miles, chatting about the latest doping news and the bike rider who was killed yesterday on the Seabrook bridge when he was hit from behind by somebody going about 70 mph. I finally ride through the pack and get the pace up to about 20 and soon we're going pretty hard at around 27, with a few surges up to 30. After a while, there are only 6 or 7 of us in the rotation with the rest sitting on. Every time I drop back after my pull, there's somebody opening a gap and saying "get in, Randy." A couple of times I think about just sitting up and dropping all the way to the back, but it would probably split the group if I did. I'm pretty cooked by the time we get back and spin home in an easy gear.